In Michael Lewis's new book Flash Boys, there's an insightful quote about this:
> Watching him string together sentences without profanity was like watching someone try to swim across a river without using his arms or his legs. Curiously, he later admitted, he wasn’t worried that the audience would be offended by bad language. “It was because some of them want to be the alpha male cursing in the room,” he said. “When I say ‘fuck,’ they think I’m stealing the show — so when I’m in front of a group I go as straight as I can.”
Not swearing isn't about politeness, its about hierarchy. Its the same way that Ps & Qs have their origin in the way servants spoke to the monarchy. Its like the business casual dress code; less formal than your higher-ups communicates that you're the lower-down. Everyone understands if Daddy lets a curse word slip, but if his 6-year-old toddler gets the idea that she too can stomp around blurting out cuss words, she's gonna be punished.
Wow that's an interpretation I guess. I think of profanity as the untutored attempting to communicate, and substituting powerful but meaningless words in place of the right word.
The Gettysburg address contained no profanity, and it was written by a sitting President. How does that fit into this social theory?
I suppose that Lincoln was addressing the American people in a manner which conveys that they (the electorate) are his boss. Its the same tone in other formal speeches, eg any State of the Union speech. Compare to examples of Presidents cussing.[1] These examples are usually directed at specific subordinates. Also a funny note to compare the example of when a celebrity cursed a former president, going against the hierarchy.[2] The celebrity had to apologize afterward. It seems to fit the theory well enough.
That's the thing. If all you say is "fuck", then there's no problem, but you also have no range in your profanity.
When I swear, there's no way I would want a child to hear it. Their parents would hate having to explain what I said and they would dread their children repeating it in front of 'polite company'.
I wouldn't want my mother to hear it, because her brain would explode thinking that she created a son who, some 20+ years on his own, could create the thoughts behind my swearing.
My father would probably just pause for a second, chuckle, and then utter a string of such vile filth that I couldn't look at a roll of duct tape again without nausea.
I think the core message of the post is a really, really weak version of what Louis CK got into regarding the "n-word".[1] Without saying something offensive, you're still putting that offensive thing into the person's mind. If you write "fvck", you know people are reading it as "fuck". It's just cowardly.
Louis CK used "cunt", what a guy. I would love to hear his version of "the aristocrats".
The thing is I'm from the UK, and I get the impression that "cunt" is considered a severe taboo in the US (I might be mistaken). Where I live it is heard so often that after a while you don't even notice it, it becomes bland.
> That's the thing. If all you say is "fuck", then there's no problem, but you also have no range in your profanity.
Some non-English expletives that I am fond of:
"puta" (Spanish): literal translation "whore", but is often used semantically more like "fuck", so "puta madre" can be parsed as "motherfucker".
"harami" (Arabic): literally means thief, but when I first came across it I knew it as "bastard", which is how it is used in some Asian languages like Urdu.
Fuck, this is the shit. This cunt is really fucking onto something! Some wanker tells me to clean up my language: fuck off, ya bastard, I'm just trying to communicate, wanker.
> Watching him string together sentences without profanity was like watching someone try to swim across a river without using his arms or his legs. Curiously, he later admitted, he wasn’t worried that the audience would be offended by bad language. “It was because some of them want to be the alpha male cursing in the room,” he said. “When I say ‘fuck,’ they think I’m stealing the show — so when I’m in front of a group I go as straight as I can.”
Not swearing isn't about politeness, its about hierarchy. Its the same way that Ps & Qs have their origin in the way servants spoke to the monarchy. Its like the business casual dress code; less formal than your higher-ups communicates that you're the lower-down. Everyone understands if Daddy lets a curse word slip, but if his 6-year-old toddler gets the idea that she too can stomp around blurting out cuss words, she's gonna be punished.